


is this it

by 4cky



Category: Persona 3
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Timelines, Everybody Lives, Multi, Scarification, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, mental trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 05:09:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5526602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/4cky/pseuds/4cky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>they don't have names at this point.</p><p>they don't have anything.</p><p>they just keep repeating. but they know what needs to happen, now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	is this it

The first time it happened, the whole timeline seemed like a dream. She rested her head on Aigis’ lap, watching the blue (the color reminded her of someone, not Fuuka, though. She wasn’t certain who) sky above, and she fell asleep.

And she stopped breathing.

But then her eyes opened again, and she was on the train to the dormitory again. Like a dream, the details became muddied and strange. She remembered the second time around that something was wrong about Ikutsuki. Something happens to an upperclassman in red. Someone is always lost, someone very important. But never the details.

Upon the third timeline, she started to realize that this wasn’t normal. Perhaps it was by the fifth time, when everything had a dreadful sort of déjà vu that she tried to record it in a journal. Of course, that was scrapped when she realized she couldn’t keep it through each cycle. She stopped counting sometime after the sixth cycle when she couldn’t figure out a way to remember. She just went through the motions of continuing, remembering that something was wrong, something still needed to happen, but she never knew what.

During one of the cycles, she realized that scars stayed. During one of the cycles, she’d chosen volleyball instead of her typical tennis (though the members would always stay the same, no matter which club she picked), and managed to get caught in the net. It was such a problem that one of the girls got someone from the infirmary, who had to cut the net (and nicked her arm) to get her out. She picked at it far too many times as it was healing and ended up having a new scar on her arm; but it didn’t disappear, the next cycle, as so many other things did.

During one of the timelines, she slowly started to carve the words on the inside of her arm, carefully, with the help of a mirror, in English so that hopefully, no one else who ever saw them would question what it said. It hurt like hell, but how else could she remember the important things that happened in the future? How else could she try to help?

So she had three phrases: SHIN CAN BE SAVED (calling him ‘Shinji’ felt sanctimonious, though the reasons why kept feeling more murky every cycle), CHIDO 2 (writing full names was painful, and flat out exhausting, but when she heard the names again she recognized them), and RYOJI IS XIII. The top of the X in thirteen is crossed slightly on the left side, and she presumes that when she did it, she wanted to write something else. Perhaps XIII was the fastest (though, objectively, it required more motion than 13). 

And yet, despite going through this what must have been hundreds of times, with hundreds of names that never seemed to be hers, nothing changed. Nothing ever changed. 

Again, she gets to the dorms, the path familiar. She sees the boy, name on the tip of her tongue, but it’s gone like water in her hands, her memories falling out of her head. The boy tells her to sign the contract, as she had hundreds of times before. She picks up the pen to sign, but sees someone else has beaten her to it. The name seems familiar, though she never recalls seeing it before. She sets her pen down, looking at the boy, but he is already smiling and speaking, “Time is something which chases everyone down. Its path cannot be altered. That’s simply how it is.”

Someone else steps forward. She can’t see it, but she feels it, like a ghost is speaking to the boy. He looks up, focusing on some point a little above her forehead, and it makes her nervous. 

The boy continues, “Of course. Try as hard as you can. Perhaps, someday, something can change.” He giggles. It’s like he’s having a conversation with someone who isn’t present. She makes a noise, but it comes out sounding like two people, not just her own. She looks behind herself and sees nothing. “Well, then! I certainly wish you luck,” the boy finishes with a giggle and melts into the shadows. 

 

~~~

 

He is in the Velvet Room again, as he expected he’d be. Even if you lose your memories a thousand times, you can piece together enough to understand things before they happen. He’d meet Elizabeth and Igor--he remembered their names, at least--and they would explain to him the basic functions of the Velvet Room, though they’d chuckle to themselves as Elizabeth flipped through the thousands of Personas he’d registered in times past.

That was always how it happened, and it never changed.

Except this time, as he sat down in the familiar seat, he didn’t see Igor sitting in his, nor did he see Elizabeth to the side, knowing smile on her lips. Instead, there was another girl, also in a Gekkoukan outfit, sitting down in a chair across from him. She looked just as confused as he was sure he did. But then, something settled in his stomach (perhaps it was hope?) Despite the oddness of someone else being in the Velvet Room, he knew innately why she was there. She was familiar, like someone he used to be best friends with but forgot about, long ago.

Despite himself, he smiled. Something had changed, obviously. He wasn’t certain exactly what, yet, but, perhaps this time would really be the last time he’d experience the same year over. She opens her mouth, then closes it again. _You’ve been here before?_ he asks without words.

 _Many times, I think._ She responds.

He thinks he knows this before she even notifies him. It’s strange, but part of him feels like he’s known her for a long time, but she’s been gone, and having her back gives him more confidence. _The people who live here aren’t avaliable, it seems._

She touches the underside of her left arm, and it’s almost like a mirror, in a way, as he wonders if she has scars there too. _No wild card?_

He shakes his head. _Not now, at least._ In the future, perhaps, they could change personas as they always had, but at present it wasn’t an option. 

She nods, slowly, taking this information in. Finally, she wonders if they will meet again, which he cannot answer. Perhaps they will, perhaps they won’t. The fact that someone different was here at all was enough to instill hope in him. When he doesn’t say anything, she continues. _I have words I write on my arm. Shin can be saved, Chi too, and Ryoji is XIII._

He isn’t sure how to react to the first statement. He knows the upperclassman in a red coat always dies; how can he be saved? Is that even possible? He remembers that Junpei’s girlfriend dies but can be brought back. _Mine say ‘Ikutsuki betrays. I held death. Ryoji is XIII.’_

It doesn’t seem odd that they would have the same final phrase. Staring at each other felt like looking into a mirror, anyways. She nods, standing up slowly. _Thanks. I guess I’ll leave, then._

He sits in the Velvet Room alone for a time. He half wonders if what he’d seen wasn’t some sort of desperate attempt by his mind to stop this, the timeline repetition; after all, Ryoji Mochizuki can’t be saved. But it was why he kept coming back, he knew. Even if every other variable ended inevitably in the same goal, he still wanted to save Ryoji. Even if he was Death.

The Velvet Room is quiet and empty, and no one shows any sign of returning. He supposes that perhaps he should leave, wondering if the lack of Igor and Elizabeth had anything to do with the fact he never signed his name on the contract Pharos gave him. He puts his headphones on and stands up.

 

~~~

 

She sees him again in the Velvet Room, several times after that. He wears a Gekkoukan school uniform, but Mitsuru-senpai just looks confused when she asks her about it. She tries to investigate, once, but her partner can’t see for the life of him, so she feels deja vu as she reminds him that the key he found was wrong.  


She trusts the guy she meets in the Velvet Room as if he were an old friend, and tells him what little she can remember about the tangled time loops. He seems to be the same age as her, but he always seems older, more tired. She has, on more than one occasion, wondered if he were a ghost, but his only answer would be a small and uncharacteristic smile. Still, he’s a good person. When she mentions gaps in her memory, he tries his best to fill them in with what he knows, and she appreciates it.

She tries to predetermine how and when, exactly, Ikutsuki betrays them. She was certain it would happen when Junpei was kidnapped (her Velvet Room partner informed her of the missing details), but it doesn’t happen then. She wonders, never asking aloud.

Most fine details escape her; she knows Aigis before she meets her, and she trusts her immediately, although she cannot recall how the android’s hair lays on their head or what color it was, and she can recognize most of the people she fights alongside the first time she meets them, even if she has to see them again to jog the memory. But in her mind, like the scar of a burn, lies the memory of Ryoji (she would say she presumes it to be him, except that says that she was ever uncertain. She knows it is Ryoji.) His hair is dark and his eyes are blue, and he always wears a scarf that’s yellow like a cartoon picture of the moon. 

She’s unsure why that memory is so important. She knows she could ask the other person in the Velvet Room, but she feels uncomfortable doing so. While in the Velvet Room once, explaining how she managed to keep Shinjiro-senpai alive as the details came to her, he communicates something about 'how he will be saved'.

Who he’s speaking of doesn’t even need to be said.

 

~~~

 

He’s not sure why he’s surprised that when he goes to the police station that they do, in fact, have a pocket watch that was found. Though he is lying, he gets it back ‘for a friend’ and gives it to Shinjiro Aragaki when he gets home. He gets a strange look and a gruff thanks and explanation that it’d been missing, but he already knew that; he tried to pay attention when she told him things, after all. 

Shinjiro Aragaki does not know that he will be shot twice. He does not know that he should be dead come October 5th, at least not in the way he was expecting. But according to her, the watch blocks the bullet meant for the heart, and that makes all the difference. Putting his faith in someone else should be more uncomfortable than it felt at this moment, at least given his past cycles through it. But he can trust her, he knows this in his gut.

And yet.

When October 5th comes and he does, somehow, survive, his team members screaming and panicking about getting him to a hospital (because he isn’t dead), he’s shocked. He shouldn’t be, but it happened just as she said it would. He wasn’t especially close to Shinjiro, but he knows that this will still be a change. An impact, however small.

He doesn’t convey it on his face (because there’s no reason to laugh and smile when someone gets shot, he knows that much), but in his heart he feels like he’s flying. This is different. A change was made. Which means other changes could be possible. Which means there’s no reason to assume that Ryoji is lost forever. Which means there’s hope. 

He starts to formulate a plan, because Ryoji will be back soon. Perhaps he could keep Aigis from confronting him on the Moonlight Bridge (except that won’t work, because either way he knows he’s the Appraiser, doesn’t he?) or tell him not to leave the dormitories on the last day of the year. He takes it seriously this time.  


He starts to count the days until Ryoji will be back. Even as the days march endlessly towards the end of everything, he can’t stop thinking about Ryoji’s smile, and how much his chest tightens when he does so. Because this time he will save him. He must.

 

~~~

 

She does her best to hold it together in front of her teammates. A leader should smile, even if they felt like they’d been broken, because that brought people hope. When Ryoji looks at her and says ‘nice to meet you’, she can’t stop crying. 

Aigis tells Ms. Toriumi she is sick and needs to see the nurse, and she’s grateful. She can’t do this.

She can’t do this again. _I’ll probably make you sad_ repeats in her head over and over, as she lets Aigis explain that she has ‘some sort of human allergies’.

 

~~~~

 

On New Year’s Eve, Ryoji tells him that he must kill him. But he never does. He has, he remembers distantly, tried to end his own existance on a few occasions, only to get the saddest look that he’d ever seen Ryoji wear. It hurts too much to keep trying when he sees that look. But this time, he’s not as scared. Because he will get Ryoji back, he must. 

Ryoji insists that he isn’t human. That he isn’t worthy of compassion, or a dignified death, or something like that. But he’s still warm and comforting like anything he’s ever loved. Ryoji is surprised, it seems, when he holds him, even when becoming Death incarnate. But he doesn’t care. When Ryoji becomes human again, he looks so sad. 

Ryoji looks sad, but doesn’t cry. He’s never seen him cry, if he really thinks back on it. But even if he wasn’t exactly human, he still wanted to save Ryoji. He had to. He didn’t want to be around if Ryoji couldn’t be there as well. 

“I’m glad I could spend the last of my time with you, like this,” Ryoji says softly. 

In his barely-used voice, he responds, “It won’t be. You’ll be saved.”

Ryoji gives him a strange look, sad and confused, “...that’s not possible.”

“It is,” he says, voice shaking, “it will be.”

 

~~~

 

They stand before Nyx Avatar. As they had hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of times. It’s become almost laughably easy to defeat, in a way. And yet, upon the final arcana shift, they drop their weapons. Fuuka is startled. “Leader! No! You can still fight! Are you charmed?”

And it’s a little funny because they suppose that they are. Because they step forward, almost standing at the feet of Nyx Avatar, looking up at the mask of a face. They can hear shouting (they presume it to be their team members). It’s strange, how much like Ryoji their enemy seems. They suppose it’s because Nyx Avatar IS Ryoji, to an extent. 

The two of them stand, looking at each other (or so they presume, there are no eyes behind the mask the Avatar wears). What they expect is to be hit with--well, something. Anything. But no. They should be scared, they know that much, but they’re calm. Their mouth is dry when they open it.

“Ryoji.”

The Avatar looks at them, curious. The silence continues for a minute, perhaps longer, before speaking, “I was once known as that, but no longer.”

But again, they insist, “Ryoji.”

“I am not Ryoji.”

“Ryoji.”

Nyx Avatar stares, stone-faced at them. Perhaps wondering why this human insisted on calling them by the name of someone who had been gone for some time. But this is their last chance. There must be, has to be some way to save Ryoji. This wasn’t all for nothing. The reason they kept coming back, time after time after time was to save Ryoji. Ryoji was what mattered the most.

Their eyes are wet, as they continue to repeat Ryoji’s name. Nyx Avatar stands, head tilted, staring with the smiling mask of theirs, never moving to attack. It becomes something of a frantic chant. Ryoji has to be saved. Ryoji must be saved. Even if they have to die to do it, Ryoji has to come back.

Nyx Avatar drops their blade. The Avatar reaches one of their long hands down to them and for a fraction of a second, they worry that they simply intend to crush them. “If you truly have the strength for it, perhaps you could reverse the hands of time.”

They hold their hand up, hesitating for a moment, before pressing their palm to the hand of the Avatar. It feels warm. They close their eyes for only a moment, but they feel like Ryoji is there again, that he really is back.

They open their eyes and Nyx Avatar is gone. Nothing stands there any longer.

They wanted to scream, cry, shout that it wasn’t fair. Ryoji should have come back. They made all the right decisions. _Ryoji had to come back._ But they were alone again. Alone, they went to Nyx. Not alone, they supposed, but without Ryoji.

They did as their duty dictated.

 

~~~

 

Their hearts feel heavy as they lay on Aigis’ lap once more. It is pointless after all. Perhaps if they wake up again, they can simply end it early to save themselves the trouble. “You must be tired,” she says, not knowing the years, the lifetimes they had wasted for nothing to change.

They just wanted to be done.

They just wanted it to be over.

They close their eyes again, ready to sleep and never wake up.

A familiar voice almost gives them a heart attack. “Geez, you’re gonna sleep up here while everyone else is at an assembly?”

Their eyes fly open, catching a glimpse of a familiar shade of yellow. They think they’re dreaming. “...Ryoji?”

“Back by popular demand, I guess!” He laughs, but they think they may be crying as they sit up, holding onto him as if he were a life raft and they were drowning. They think they may be crushing him, thin, spidery self and all, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He clings back, just as hard, patting their head. 

They separate, if only just to look at each other again, perhaps to wipe their face. Ryoji smiles, gentle and sad.

“I’m back…” he says, softly.

“Welcome home.”


End file.
